How This Language App Takes You From Beginner to Conversational In Just 15 Minutes A Day

Want to learn a new language but short on time? Language learning doesn’t have to be as time-consuming as you may think. In fact, if you spend just 15 minutes a day using Babbel, you can start having basic conversations in your new language in three weeks! Here’s how we know it works.

Experts believe practicing for 15 minutes daily is the perfect amount of study time. It has to do with the concept of learning in small chunks, which helps our brains absorb new material. With this in mind, Babbel’s team of language-learning experts designs each lesson to take around 15 minutes to complete, teaching you a few new pieces of info that you’ll easily remember and build on over time. Babbel takes a scientific approach to language learning that’s been proven effective by researchers at Yale University, City University of New York, Michigan State University and more.

We wanted to test out these expert findings to see if they hold true when real learners use Babbel. To prove this, we challenged four beginners to study with Babbel for only 15 minutes a day. Watch the video above to see how they did!

Here are the top three reasons Babbel makes even the most beginner language learners successful:

1. Babbel focuses on speaking and having conversations

Speaking can be the hardest part of learning a new language, but it’s also one of the most important parts. Babbel’s courses are designed to get you speaking from the start with lessons voiced by native speakers that teach you how the language should sound.

The app’s accurate speech recognition technology corrects your pronunciation until you get it right, making sure you’re ready to speak the language and be understood by native speakers. Interactive dialogues at the end of each lesson are a fun way to help you practice what you’ve learned in conversations related to real-world situations. Together, these features will boost your confidence in speaking and having basic conversations in your new language.

Virginia, who learned Portuguese with Babbel, said she particularly liked these simulated dialogues: “You can actually imagine everything you’re learning being used in real, everyday conversations and you’re envisioning how the app is prepping you to have those practical conversations.”

2. You can choose topics that are relevant to you

The Babbel app makes it easy to pick and choose which specific topics you’d like to learn each day. Whether you want to learn how to order food, how to get around a city, how to conduct a business meeting or even how to flirt with someone, there’s a Babbel lesson covering the topics that are most relevant to you.

“Babbel does a great job at making [the lessons] apply to your everyday life. There’s almost a course on anything and everything that would apply to your situation,” said Taylor, who studied Spanish with Babbel.

German learner Thomas also found the course variety useful: “If you know what you want to do [when traveling], just run through in your head what interactions you think you’ll be having… if you know you’re going to restaurants, learn that kind of restaurant vocabulary. If you’re going to be checking into hotels, learn that as well.”

3. The in-app Review Manager makes it all stick

One of the key scientific approaches Babbel uses is spaced repetition of material you’ve learned to help you remember it. That’s where the Review Manager comes in. It’s a collection of the words and sentences you’ve learned, so you can easily review them and make them stick in your long-term memory.

“Every day, I used the Review Manager to review vocab and verbs and terms that I would need,” said Jen, who studied French with Babbel before (and during) her trip to Paris. “It actually was amazing because I remembered a lot of that from studying 10 years ago, but it brought it up freshly in my memory and I was able to attach it to things I already knew which helped cement it.”

Virginia is also a big fan of the review manager: “It’s great that it’s personalized to your learning… so you can make sure you’re drilling those words and phrases into your brain and so you feel good about it, that you actually learned them.”

As the video makes clear, these four learners were able to have basic conversations in their new languages by using Babbel for just 15 minutes a day for three weeks. If they can do it, so can you!

Dylan is Babbel USA’s senior content producer. He studied journalism at Ithaca College and previously managed social media for CBS Evening News. He’s currently pursuing his MBA part-time at NYU Stern. His interests include podcasts, puppies, politics, alliteration, reading, writing, and dessert. Dylan lives in New York City.

Dylan is Babbel USA’s senior content producer. He studied journalism at Ithaca College and previously managed social media for CBS Evening News. He’s currently pursuing his MBA part-time at NYU Stern. His interests include podcasts, puppies, politics, alliteration, reading, writing, and dessert. Dylan lives in New York City.